


Reid's Secret

by PidgeTheCat17



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Episode: s01e06 L.D.S.K., Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Self-Harm, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Spencer Reid Whump, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27257020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PidgeTheCat17/pseuds/PidgeTheCat17
Summary: Four times the BAU team almost find out about Reid’s unhealthy coping mechanisms, and the one time they do.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 138





	Reid's Secret

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: While not depicted graphically, this fanfic focuses on topics of self-harm. If this is triggering to you please don't read.
> 
> For anyone else, I hope you enjoy my Reid whump.

1 

Spencer had caught on to Hotch’s plan almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough to prepare him. It was genius, really; Hotch convincing the unsub that he hated him, manipulating the sniper into letting him beat the younger agent up, all based on the assumption that Reid would remember the gun holstered at his ankle. The young genius does, of course, so the plan was successful. It doesn’t make the kick to his gut hurt any less, though. 

Reid grunts, partly on purpose to cover the noise of clicking the gun from it’s holster, and mostly because his ribs hurt. Hotch pulls back again, giving him the cover to grab the gun fully and tuck it between his legs, before nailing him one last time. Tears build at the corners of Spencer’s eyes as Hotch’s shoe digs into his arm, pulling on the still healing cuts he’d made last night. He can feel the crack of scabs breaking open, and knows some had reopened. 

Usually he’d be freaking out, especially because he was wearing a gray button-up that he could easily bleed through. He’s a bit too busy freaking out about the armed killer, though, and trying to shoot him. He isn’t really aiming when he shoots, just points in the unsub’s direction and pulls the trigger. 

Twelve minutes later is when the fear hits him. Spencer stands away from the crowd, waiting to be able to go home. He’d checked two minutes ago and noticed a few drops of blood stark against his sleeve. Now he kept them crossed tightly over his chest.

“ You alright?” A voice asks and Spencer looks up from the ground. It’s Hotch. Reid pulls his arms tighter, but smiles. He manages a nod. “Nice shot,” Hotch continues, moving to match Reid’s crossed arms. If he didn’t want to avoid attention on his arms, Spencer would have said something about how often people mimic each other’s positions is based on their closeness. 

“I was aiming for his leg,” Spencer says instead, attempting to joke. It works, and Hotch smiles.

“I wouldn’t have kept kicking but I was afraid you didn’t get my plan.” It dawns on him that Agent Hotchner had been worried about him. 

“I got your plan the minute you moved the hostages out of my line of fire,” Reid points out, keeping it light. 

“I hope I didn’t hurt you too badly.”

Guilt twists inside Reid. Here Hotch was worrying about hurting him, when he was doing it to himself behind their backs. What would they do if they found out?

“Hotch, I was a twelve year old child prodigy in a Las Vegas public high school,” Reid answers jokingly. He was determined not to worry them. “You kick like a nine year old girl.” 

That night Spencer goes home, rubs the blood out of his shirt, and goes to bed. A combination of exhaustion and a new found mission pushes him to ignore the blades under the sink, and sleep. 

2

After the LDSK case he realized how close a call that was. As much as hurting himself helped calm his spiraling thoughts, not worrying his ‘family’ was more important. He knew from the hundreds of articles he’s read that the longer people self harm, the more addictive it can become. He also knew how negatively it can affect some families - like Schizophrenia did to his biological family. So he decided to quit, or at least try. 

Reid’s twenty days clean when he’s kidnapped.

He was just supposed to be visiting a witness, but now here the agent is, being held in a cabin in the middle of nowhere by a man with three identities - two of which wanted to kill him. At least Tobias is here, Reid thinks at first, he’s nice enough. But then Tobias is suddenly pulling his belt off and he’s so scared he forgets about the scars on his left arm until the sleeve is pulled up. 

Spencer shakes when Tobias freezes, afraid that Charles or Raphael were coming back. Instead the man just runs his fingers over the skin, feeling the ridges of scar tissue. Spencer’s eyes glance between his captor and the camera, trying to discern if it’s on; if the team is watching. 

“Tobias?” Reid finally asks, his voice weak. 

“You’re like me,” the man answers quietly, still focused on the arm.

“You- uh you hurt yourself?” He resists the urge to cringe away from his touch. Maybe if Spencer can relate to him, Tobias will let him go. 

“Not like this.” He looks up suddenly, bringing the needle and bottle of dilaudid up for Spencer to see. “It helps, too.” 

Reid nods like he understands, though he’s never done drugs before. “You’re not alone. We’re alike.” He pushes further, and can tell that Tobias is eating it up. The other quickly pulls his sleeve back down, giving him some semblance of privacy, before moving to his other side.

“Wait,” Reid protests when Tobias rolls up his other sleeve. “Please don’t.” 

“I thought you said we’re alike.” Hankel looks at him, genuine confusion written across his face. 

“Don’t,” he begs in response. Tobias just shakes his head slightly before tightening the belt around Spencer’s upper arm. 

“I’m helping you.”

“N-no I don’t want it!” Reid nearly yells, having given up on playing on Tobias’ sympathy. “Please.”

The needle pierces his skin, and Spencer checks out with only one comforting thought; the team wasn’t watching.

3

Two months after killing Tobias Hankel and being recovered by his team, Spencer feels like he’s dying. His body wants dilaudid, and he finds himself subconsciously scratching at the crook of his elbow. He hadn’t used it in a little more than a month because he’d noticed how it was affecting both his work and the team. He hated all the glances they sent his way when he twitched or snapped, but at least they never brought it up. 

The glances lessoned when Reid started coming in on time again, and acted more like himself. It seemed like he was getting better, but Reid knew better than to say that. He wasn’t using, but he’d relapsed hard into self harm. At first it was because of the dilaudid clouding his judgement, but even now, at his desk with a clear head, the urge itched at him. It’d been a stressful day, and the team had been too late to save a kidnapping victim. All he wants is to go home and dig out the blades under the sink, but Reid has paperwork to finish first. 

Thing is, he can’t focus over the sound of his mind, chanting over and over ‘I need to self harm, I need to self harm, I need to self harm.’ Spencer can read 20,000 words a minute, but he’s been staring at the same file for the last ten minutes. 

His eyes drift to the go-bag under his desk, packed with clothing and toiletries, as well as a single, hidden razor blade. Reid had put it there just in case the team ever left the state for more than a few days, but he’d never pulled it out in the office before. 

The floor was empty this time, though, other than the people manning the front desk and a couple security guards that came through every so often. Just Spencer in an empty room with his thoughts and a blade. 

The agent lasts ten more minutes before he’s heading to the bathroom with his bag in hand. Subconsciously the genius knows the guards won’t be making their rounds through there for another 21 minutes, and even then they probably wouldn’t canvas the bathroom, but he still pushes himself to rush. Reid fumbles with his stuff from his seat on a toilet lid, holding his breath when he nearly drops the blade. 

His hand steadies as he begins, though, and the storm in his mind calms as he focuses on making shallow cuts across his forearm. He stops after a few minutes, not wanting to go on forever while crunched in a toilet stall, and just sits there, blade in hand as he watches the blood run slightly, and then begins to dry. 

Spencer lets lose a deep breath, finally feeling like he can breathe again. 7 minutes until the guards come by, his mind supplies. He nods to himself and slowly puts everything back to where it belonged. He dapped at the excess blood before flushing away the soiled paper and pulling his sleeve down. He was wearing a dark sweater that fit snuggly enough that it wouldn’t slip up, so he left the wounds to scab over without bandages and moved to leave the bathroom. 

Spencer nearly gets hit in the face with a door when he tries. He jumps back, making a nonsensical noise of surprise as he does. He’s scared for a second as all the work-related murder cases the BAU had worked on go through his mind. A couple months ago there was a woman who poisoned five of her bosses over the course of 7 years. Reid is relieved when a familiar face peeks through. 

“Shit, sorry,” Morgan apologizes as he opens the door again, this time slowly. “I don’t break your pretty face, did I?” 

Reid rolls his eyes at the term of endearment. “I’m fine. I didn’t realize you were still here.” 

“Forgot my phone.” He shakes the object in his hand before slipping it into his pocket. In the movement he notices the bag in Reid’s hands. “What are you doing in here so late?” 

“Using the restroom,” Reid answers like it's obvious. 

“You need your go bag to do that?” Morgan asks. He leans against the door frame, blocking the other in. 

“I-” Spencer scrambles for any excuse, fingering the straps of his bag as he does. “No. No I just needed to change clothes.”

“You’re wearing the same clothing you were earlier,” Morgan points out, his eyebrows beginning to lower in the way they did around unsubs. “Reid what’s going on?”

“I had to change my socks, okay?” Reid answers shortly. “I spilled coffee on my shoes.” The lie works, and Morgan relaxes. 

“For a genius, you really are a klutz sometimes, you know that?” He laughs as he pushes himself off the wall and moves past Reid and into the bathroom. His arm brushes against Spencer’s and the latter sucks in a breath. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Reid answers dismissively and leaves quickly, abandoning the files on his desk in favor of heading to his car and properly freaking out.

4

Three months later, the team is in Florida, having just arrested a serial arsonist case and wrapping up paperwork.. 

“You’ve seriously never been to Florida before?” Morgan asks, again.

“No, Morgan,” Reid says, not looking up from the file in his lap. 

“I’m starting to wonder if you’ve ever taken a vacation in your life,” the agent mutters.

“I have. When I was seven we went on a family trip to the grand canyon,” Reid corrects, not realizing that it was more of a joke. “Do you know it’s 6,001 feet deep? 12 people die in it a year.”

“U-huh that doesn’t count,” Morgan taps at the file in Reid’s hand to get his attention. “After we finish this paperwork, I’m dragging you to the beach.”

“I-” he begins to protest, but a slightly familiar voice cuts him off.

“Spencer!” Reid turns, following the voice to a man walking towards them. “Spencer Reid it really is you!” 

The agent studies him for a moment before it clicks; they’d been in a couple classes together when Spencer had been earning his second Ph.D. “Hey, Ian.” He smiles slightly, standing to meet him. Ian had been nice to him, and was one of the only guys to accept his ‘no touch’ policy. They’d even gone to the bar together sometimes.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Ian says as he sits on the edge of a desk. Reid follows suit and sits back in his chair. “What are you doing here?” 

Reid explains that he was working on a case, and after Ian’s initial amazement at the term ‘FBI agent’, they catch up. Apparently Ian was there as a witness to a mugging, and lived around town now. Spencer almost forgets that Morgan is there until he clears his throat.

“Oh sorry,” Reid says, gesturing Ian’s attention to his partner. “This is Derek Morgan. He’s on the BAU team with me.” 

“Nice to meet you, Derek,” Ian says, standing to shake the other’s hand. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

“U too,” Derek responds, shaking firmly. He’d been wary of Ian at first, especially knowing about the bullying Reid received when he was younger, but he’d quickly realized he was an okay guy. “We were just talking about how Spencer’s never been to Florida. I was about to say that we should hit the beach after the case. That is, if Hotch lets us.” He nods towards the back of the precinct where Hotch was talking to a detective. 

“The beach, huh? There’s a nice one a couple miles west of here,” Ian offers. “I could show you guys later.”

“That sounds-”

“I’ll pass,” Reid answers too quickly. “I don’t really feel up for the beach.” It wasn’t a lie - Spencer really didn’t like beaches. Too much sand and people and external stimuli. But what he really wanted to avoid was having to explain why he was wearing a long sleeve shirt at the beach. 

They both look at him, Morgan with confusion and Ian with concern. 

“Is it because of your…” Ian trials off, gesturing at his arm instead. Reid’s heart races. How did Ian know? He almost facepalms when he realizes how much he rambled when he drank. Of course Ian knew, he’d probably talked about it at the bar one night, or hadn’t been careful enough with his sleeve. 

“No, no not that,” Reid denies before Morgan can ask. “I just don’t like the beach. Too many people. And sand.” 

Ian nods, his face slightly skeptical. Before the conversation can go further, though, his phone rings. “Shit I have to go. I’ll catch you later,” he says quickly before walking outside to answer the phone. 

“Reid,” Morgan says once he leaves. The genius tenses, sensing the question coming. “What was he talking about?”

“Ian knows how I feel about touch. He probably meant that.” He shrugs, trying to play down the importance. 

“Yeah.” Spencer doesn’t meet his eyes, focusing on his paperwork as Morgan talks. “I guess that makes sense.” The agent lapses into silence, they go back to their paperwork, and Reid can finally breathe again.

**Author's Note:**

> Part two, or "the one where the team finds out" will come soon!


End file.
